Newbie Vivaldi is the first IoT-enabled browser; controls background colour based on surroundings' lighting

You may not have heard of the Vivaldi Browser yet, but it's about time that you take notice. Launched earlier this year to take on giants like Chrome and Firefox, Vivaldi came out with its latest update, Version 1.5, today, with a rather futuristic new addition. With Vivaldi, users can now control the colour of the lighting in smart-homes, thus making it the first ever browser to be IoT-enabled.

Upon its launch in April 2016, founder of Vivaldi and ex-CEO of Opera Jon Von Tetzchner had teased at Vivaldi's approach. "Vivaldi 1.0 is both a throwback and a look ahead. It’s a ‘modern classic’ designed to help our users get the most out of all the time they spend with their browser," he had told YourStory.

This is quite the state-of-the-art facelift for Vivaldi, and a move into uncharted territory as far as browsers are concerned. They are partnering with Hue colour lights from Philips for this feature. One has to enable Hue in Vivaldi’s Theme settings, and then hit the Philips Hue Bridge to perform the syncing with the specific lights. One can then select which lights Vivaldi can control, following which, the browser senses the colour of your physical surroundings and syncs the colour of the web page accordingly, and vice-versa, i.e. you can also control the lighting in your physical surroundings, based on the colour of the web.

The possibilities of what one can do with an IoT-enabled browser are endless. “This is just a first step for us, but imagine a world where you get notified of a new email or web notification through a light bulb," Tetzchner explained, as reported by the Deccan Chronicle. "Vivaldi is all about customisation and flexibility. Integrating with IoT devices like Philips Hue makes it possible for Vivaldi to adapt to you and your everyday life," he added.

Currently available for Windows, macOS and Linux, the browser also came out with a series of bug fixes to augment the user-experience - like being able to drag tabs, tab stacks and tab selections between windows, features that the Chrome browser already sports. Besides these, the browser now also has a reader mode and automatic screenshots in notes.

Vivaldi had entered the market with a host of innovative features like Tab stacks, which enable users to reduce clutter, Notes, meant as a tool for researchers where users can mark quotes and save them as notes, Quick commands and shortcuts, and Speed dial, wherein users can access sites and bookmarks easily from any blank tab and are enabled to keep track of secondary responsibilities while focusing on the main work in the primary browsing window.

"Thinking beyond a browser and entering the real world is not only adventurous, but also encourages the spirit of innovation and experimentation. We are open to new 'out of the box' ideas that make your browsing experience more creative and pleasurable. Ideas from our users and continuous implementations of those ideas only strengthen our relationship with them," Tetzchner said.